How to be a Creative Genius 3.

24122009

Life Lessons from Einstein’s youth

3. Pursue your sense of wonder

When I was 5 years old I came down with an illness that forced me to take bed rest.

My father gave me a gift that would change my life. To many this gift would not even stir their interest. But because of my curiosity this gift changed my life. What many people would just pass by I pondered.

This gift was a compass.

What makes this point to north no matter where I stand? I shook it up, spun it around and it would still point north. I would stand behind trees, behind old pillars, inside of buildings. It would still point north. Most people go through their lives with the least thought of the mysteries of the universe. This compass caused me to question. It kindled in me a life-long need to know how nature worked. What my father kindled in me was more valuable than the dull reciting of the times tables. There is a force in nature, a magic!

In our everyday lives most preoccupy themselves with what they readily understand- what they see.

But nature itself tells us there is much more than what senses cannot explain. It was the first time I experienced wonder!

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. Something deeply hidden had to be behind things. Wonder was ignited in me by a compass. Many years later I invented another kind of compass and also wrote a famous paper on magnetism.